Luca Guadagnino (born August 10, , Palermo, Sicily, Italy) is an Italian filmmaker known for Call Me by Your Name (), Suspiria (), Bones and All (), and Challengers (). Guadagnino is openly gay and often explores queer themes in his films. In their feverish film, Craig plays a man embroiled in a drug-fuelled gay affair. He and director Guadagnino talk about love, ageing — and a forgotten sex act. T here is no shortage of directors who have made movies about gay life only to then backtrack and claim they were not specifically gay stories after all: Tom Ford did it with A Single Man , William Friedkin with both Cruising and The Boys in the Band.
Whether it be his coming-of-age story and exploration of budding sexuality in Call Me By Your Name or the homoerotic qualities of Challengers, each film offers a new perspective on matters relating to desire, intimacy and identity, a subject that is endlessly fascinating to Guadagnino. By Ashley Lee. Sony Pictures Classics nabbed the film before its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered rave reviews and topped numerous critics lists. Of course!
Playing a queer character is not new ground for Craig. The year-old actor previously starred in Knives Out sequel Glass Onion as gay detective Benoit Blanc, who is married to Philip (played by Hugh Grant). It’s been reported that Outer Banks star Drew Starkey will play Allerton. The director got candid in front of a jam-packed room of journalists Tuesday afternoon — who were lapping up every word — at the press conference of his new film Queer. Stock Listing Plan? An American ex-pat in his mids, William is isolated in Mexico City.
Recent announcements have ginned up excitement about even more potential upcoming films: a gay romance starring Challengers ’ Josh O’Connor, a new take on American Psycho starring Austin. Those expecting the rampant bacchanal horniness of Challengers will also be disappointed; where his last film revelled in the destructive exhilaration of unchecked lust and the fertile ambiguity of homoerotic tension, Queer takes these component parts and transforms them into a different beast entirely — a little softer, a little more slant. Desire rather than sex is the subject here; even in its most unrequited, unconsummated form it radiates off the screen. The desire belongs to William Lee, an American expat living in Mexico City in the s, played with sweet seediness by the ever-surprising Daniel Craig.